


Solid

by rants_skellington



Category: Saints Row
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2013-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-02 02:00:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rants_skellington/pseuds/rants_skellington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing really seemed all that real</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solid

**Author's Note:**

> First Saints Row fic woo. Quick point; the Boss depicted here does have an appearance based on my own, sorry if that bothers you. This was originally about Gat after the end of the first game but expanded outwards from that, I guess I have a lot to say about Johnny Gat.

He just accepted it. That was the best way to deal with it. Accept it and ignore it, don’t let it become a  _big deal_. He thought playa was hot. He didn’t have to- and didn’t  _want_  to- do anything about it. Just let it remain a nebulous, somehow threatening concept in the back of his mind. He had Aisha. Man, that girl drove him up the wall sometimes. But then other times he’d wake up with his arm twisted up under her back and his head at the most awkward angle and their legs tangled together and it was simultaneously the most uncomfortable place in the world and the only place Johnny wanted to be for the rest of his life.

Playa loved death and destruction as much as he did and though the mute act got on his nerves sometimes, that scrawny motherfucker was his best goddamn friend. Or  _best mate_  as he was sure playa would say it; he’d heard the slip of an English accent the one time they’d spoken in front of him. Dex said he’d heard it too. And apparently the kid knew their shit when it came to shoes, which was somewhat perplexing more than anything.

But now the Saints were riding high as the only gang in the city and even if Johnny still had his leg strapped into this wire monstrosity, he was feeling optimistic. Especially since now playa had Julius back. Things could only be looking up.

The boat explosion was all over the news when the radio was flicked on as he ate breakfast. Something about it made this feeling of dread grow in the pit of his stomach, a deep hollow somewhere behind his ribs. He didn’t know why exactly but he knew something was  _wrong_. The Alderman and his staff were all dead, apparently, no one knew why they’d been on the boat hours before the fundraiser was due to start. There’d been a survivor, someone had thrown themselves from the boat at the last minute, but they had yet to be identified. Some kid. People were still panicking. The Saints were being blamed.

Johnny tried to phone playa first, but the number was disconnected. Not that they’d be able to explain anything to him if they were still too stubborn to talk. He tried Troy after that, but there was no answer. Julius and Dex were too busy to pick up the phone either, apparently. He almost phoned Lin in a burst of thoughtlessness, automatically clicking on her number in the phone book before the realisation set in and he dropped the call before it even rang once.

He left the house then, even though Eesh wanted him to stay put and rest. Dragged himself over to the church to see if he could find someone who knew what the fuck was going on. He could see the cop cars before he even reached it, the swarm of police ransacking the place. He let his car idle on the side of the road, not stupid enough to charge head-first into a veritable army of cops on his own. Specially not with his wack-ass robo leg. The understanding that something was wrong was only growing inside him. There was a nervousness he wasn’t used to and didn’t like gnawing on the inside of his chest, climbing up and down inside him like a trapped animal. He headed down the playa’s shithole loft. 

The place was dead. He banged on the door until the wood threatened to splinter but there was no response. He packed up and went back to Eesh’s. He hadn’t left there in days and was in no rush to do so. More and more of his clothes and junk seemed to be transporting themselves from his home to hers. He liked hers more anyway. Didn’t have that weird smell he couldn’t get out his place, and there was always food there. 

The TV was on. The news was talking about the boat explosion. Aisha was watching it, chewing her nails. He sat on the sofa next to her, draping an arm around her casually, his face not giving away the worm of fear chewing its way through his guts. They were talking about the Alderman, the deaths of his staff. The survivor.

Aisha went rigid in the seat beside him and he found himself growing cold. Hair dyed that ludicrously bright blue. (“What are you, a  _Rollerz_  lieutenant?”) Face full of metal. (“If you took out all those piercings you’d look like a colander.”) Tall and scrawny with huge prominent cheekbones and what people would politely call an Aquiline nose, what Gat would rudely call huge. (“I’m not trying to be a dick or anything, I’m just saying you could land jets on that thing.”) 

The survivor had been identified as a high-ranking member of the Third Street Saints, which suggested the attack on the boat had not actually been them, as had been first suspected. No one knew the survivor’s name. The reporter kept calling playa that, over and over,  _the survivor._ A victim. They were in a coma in Stilwater prison hospital. 

Everything stopped making sense after that. It was like the ground collapsed under his feet and he was left treading water, everything he knew falling away from him. Troy was a cop, that was the first gut-punch moment. Johnny was ready to hunt him down then and there when he was told, him, Dex and Julius the only ones left standing in the church. The next was that the Saints were dropping their flags. 

"It’s over," Julius said. "Monica Hughes is getting funding from Ultor and they’re renovating the Row. We’re through."

Gat tried to fight against it but when Ultor swanned in and started handing out jobs like breath mints he knew there wasn’t anything left to fight for. The third punch was Dex actually taking up a job. Gat nearly killed him on the spot. He didn’t accept the job. He spat in the Ultor rep’s face for daring to suggest it. That got him in trouble but he didn’t care any more. 

Trying to assassinate Bradshaw was probably when he took things too far. He should have known he wasn’t going to walk away from that one. It was jail then, death row, and Troy made the Chief of Police. Johnny had gone from one Row to another. It seemed pretty funny at first, but no one else was laughing. 

They were making some kind of documentary about him.  _The Johnny Gat Story_. He liked the idea of being on TV. He didn’t think he was going to be able to ever see it. He was trying for an appeal. It had to be worth a shot, right?

That was when playa kicked the courtroom door in. It had been  _years_. Still a tall scrawny mess, bright blue hair and too many piercings. His best friend, swooping in to save his ass like his knight in shining armour. 

“‘Bout time your burnt ass woke up.”

"You okay Johnny?"

"Yeah, aside from almost getting sent to the chair, I’m fuckin’ great. Hey, you look different, you do something with your hair?"

They stopped being  _playa_  and started being  _the Boss_  after that. And Johnny was all too happy to go along with it. The Boss knew what they were doing. The Boss was not a fucker to be messed with. That attraction was still there, in the back of his mind, a much more clearly defined entity that before. It wasn’t that the Boss was a man- not that the Boss would appreciate the gendered language, as far as they were concerned, they were a  _they_  and that was the end of- it was the fact the Boss was the Boss. It was the fact dealing with this entire situation other than vague acceptance would take dealing with  _emotions_. And he loved Aisha. 

He didn’t know if he’d ever spat the words out, but that was the truth of it. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. This thing with the Boss was a crush, the thing was Aisha was the knowledge that he’d found the person who he’d be with forever.

Which was why in the days after when he walked through the door and saw her lifeless body fall to the floor with so many rose petals- the same ones he’d been buying her for years- the future had started seeming like a vast and endless space. This unreal void he couldn’t bring himself to consider or care about. The Boss, the crew, turned from  _the crush_  and  _the job_  into the only things rooting him in the world.  _  
_

He was on television now. Pierce was doing commercials, Shaundi had her dating show. They had to go to photoshoots and bicker about movie portrayals. He sold the rights to make comics featuring his likeness. There were clothing stores and bobble heads and T-shirts and energy drinks that tasted like death and he’d be stopped on street corners and asked for his photograph. Sometimes when him and the Boss were stopped together the two of them would pose, arms around each other’s shoulders, faces pressed together. It was a joke, he told himself, when he smelt the Boss’ aftershave and the citrus of their shampoo. It’s a joke.

Nothing felt very real. But on the nights when he’d crash at the Boss’ flat and they’d inevitably end up passing out at five am on the same bed, waking up in a tangle of arms and legs and faces millimetres apart, the ground seemed a little more solid. 


End file.
